[Wii] Gunblade NY & L.A. Machineguns Arcade Hits Pack Review

[Doctor Setebos]

Gunblade NY & L.A. Machineguns Arcade Hits Pack Review

Title: Gunblade NY & L.A. Machineguns Arcade Hits Pack
Platform: Wii
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
ESRB Rating: T (Teen)
MSRP: $29.99
Editor: Nathaniel 'Doctor Setebos' Payne

What's Hot: arcade action, budget price, heavy dose of nostalgia

What's Not: ugly graphics, weak audio, boring gameplay, no challenge

If there is anything that the Wii does well, it would have to be the Wii remote pointer functionality. Unfortunately, this functionality tends to bring with it a deluge of low-quality light-gun ports. Enter Sega's Gunblade NY & L.A. Machineguns Arcade Hits Pack, a cheap cash-in on arcade nostalgia if there ever was one.

Of the two games included in the pack, Gunblade NY (an arcade game from 1995) is especially showing its age. The characters and environments are flat and uninteresting. L.A. Machineguns (a 1998 arcade title) also shows its age, but still looks passable for a Wii port. But let's be honest, compared to the more current Wii library, these games are both horrendously ugly. Sega should have invested even the tiniest bit of effort to clean up and upgrade the graphics, at least a little. The fact that they did not says a lot about the quality of the title overall.

And if the graphics were not offered a facelift of any sort, you can bet that the gameplay suffers such neglect, as well. Infinite ammunition means that all you have to do is hold down the trigger and point at anything that moves. This leaves you with an extremely boring and repetitive game. One could argue that this is just like the arcade version of the games, and that person would be absolutely correct. But that does not necessarily mean that it's right. No ammo management means you can just keep blasting and blasting and blasting. There is no challenge in it, and the mindless shooting gets really old, really fast.

Another feature that removes any and all challenge? A complete lack of penalty for dying. In an arcade game, you would try your hardest to stay alive, because death meant you had to insert more of your hard-earned coins in order to proceed. That sort of penalty is, for obvious reasons, completely non-existent in Gunblade NY & L.A. Machineguns. When you die in the Wii title, you start exactly where you left off. And if you exhaust your lives, and are forced to continue, you start exactly where you left off.

Unlimited ammo, unlimited lives, unlimited continues. It is almost like a "god-mode" was enabled for the game, but you are not actually capable of doing anything interesting with the mode besides shoot everything in sight.

Now, the game is not entirely without its perks. Winning each game's various modes unlocks new bonuses in the other games. For example, completing L.A. Machineguns on "normal" difficulty offered me an unlockable "Rapid Fire" gun to use within Gunblade NY. This was an interesting bonus, however, I personally was not able to discern any real difference between the regular gun and the new "Rapid Fire" gun, so as a "bonus" it falls relatively flat. But it was good to see at least some attempt at including additional content in the Wii port that was not available in the original arcade titles.

Sega also saw fit to introduce some online leaderboards for the titles. As either a testament to my gaming prowess, or the fact that no one is really playing this game, I came in second in the US rankings on the online leaderboards after my first playthrough on L.A. Machineguns.

I did not fare as well on Gunblade NY.

Now, it should be noted that Sega has tried its hand at arcade light-gun ports before with an early Wii game called Ghost Squad. But with that arcade port, Sega at least felt the need to improve the graphics and add new unlockables and a fresh batch of extra content. Gunblade NY & L.A. Machineguns apparently did not deserve such treatment, which is disappointing. With a little effort, the game could have been so much more than it was. Unfortunately, what we get instead feels like nothing more than a weak attempt at cashing-in on nostalgia. All in all, the game is an ever-so-slightly superior version of was at one time a pair of truly great arcade systems. But that was in the mid-90's, and honestly, that's where these games probably should have stayed.

Score: 2 out of 5 CoGs


Nathaniel says, "If you desperately want to play this game, you should first ask yourself: will I dump more than $30 worth of quarters into either of these machines at my local arcade? If the answer is 'no', then I would suggest that you give this title a pass and try to locate the arcade version instead."

[EternalGamer]

My problem is thay sega chose the worst gun games to put in this pack. A Virtua Cop pack would kick fucking ass. Those games were awesome and their hyper polygon stylyzing would still look cool today.

[jpublic]

I have a question for Doc - did you like the original arcade games? I was fairly fond of both of them, especially Gunblade. As someone who has very fond memories of pumping significant money into those games, would you recommend them to me?

Or is this a case of letting my memories stay rosy?

[Doctor Setebos]

I actually played a bit of L.A. Machineguns when it was in our local arcade back around 2000 or so. It was a good game, I recall. The Wii game doesn't damage the memory of my original arcade experience in any noticeable way. With one exception: it kind of makes me angry to think about all those quarters spent on the game ten years ago, when in today's Wii version, continues are nothing more than a simple button-press. I got a slight jolt of anger when I thought "why couldn't it have been this easy back in 2000? I would have played it so much more!"

Obviously making continues that easy in an arcade game makes no financial sense. But still, it was a slight irk that I think did more damage to my impression of the Wii title than it did my memory of the original game.

[bapenguin]

Originally Posted by EternalGamer

My problem is thay sega chose the worst gun games to put in this pack. A Virtua Cop pack would kick fucking ass. Those games were awesome and their hyper polygon stylyzing would still look cool today.

Yes...Virtua Cop....NOW

[The Continental]

The fun of these games hinged entirely on their massive cabinets with giant machine gun controllers. Without that, I honestly can't think of a reason to play an otherwise meh lightgun game.

[Wilkz07]

i really liked these games in the arcade and was excited to see them come to the wii, but after the review i'm going to pass. thanks for saving me 30$

[Ravenlock]

Shame that they went this route with it, since the Wii really is quite good for light gun games. At a $10 downloadable title it could've been much better received, I expect (though maybe the download size limit on WiiWare would've prevented it).

Oh well. It'll be a $10 bargain bin item soon enough, and then anyone curious can give it a spin.

[Doctor Setebos]

Originally Posted by Ravenlock

Oh well. It'll be a $10 bargain bin item soon enough, and then anyone curious can give it a spin.

I was trying to think where my threshold would be for this game, and I'm pretty sure it's around $10. I think at that price, it would be a pretty good deal. More than that and it loses it's value and appeal.

[Ravenlock]

When much better looking and better playing light gun games are already on the system at $20 and under, putting this out at $30 does seem like kind of a boneheaded move. But then, there wouldn't exactly have been a run on the stores at any price point for it, so I guess they might as well pull in a few suckers while they can.